Help Needed

[naveen chauhan]

Hello TE'ians,

I have an ASUS WL 520GU Print-server Router,

I've finally decided to run DDWRT on it and use it as a torrent downloader/file sharing-NAS. Can somebody who performed it earlier with +ve results please give me a step-by-step guide on how to go over it as the DDWRT's WL520GU page is very confusing and they keep on giving links to 20-page long threads of which I don't understand a lot of things.

I'll be using a 2.5'' Transcend 160GB Hard Drive as the storage device.

Regards,

Naveen

TIA

 

[bobbyprajan]

I have been using WL-520GU for some time as a NAS and downloader. The CPU is rather weak and it is very temparmental of its USB. It works reliably only in USB 1.1. As a NAS it will be very slow giving you less than 1.5 Mbps. As a downloader it is just ok, CPU will hit 100% with 2 torrents each with 25 peers. It will barely saturate a 2 Mbps broadband. Due to these issues I upgraded to a better router, though i still have it with me.

After reading all above if you still want to go ahead with the 520GU, forget DD-WRT, use the firmware from here . I have used many firmware on WL-520GU, and this one is the best.

 

[naveen chauhan]

I have been using WL-520GU for some time as a NAS and downloader. The CPU is rather weak and it is very temparmental of its USB. It works reliably only in USB 1.1. As a NAS it will be very slow giving you less than 1.5 Mbps. As a downloader it is just ok, CPU will hit 100% with 2 torrents each with 25 peers. It will barely saturate a 2 Mbps broadband. Due to these issues I upgraded to a better router, though i still have it with me.

After reading all above if you still want to go ahead with the 520GU, forget DD-WRT, use the firmware from here . I have used many firmware on WL-520GU, and this one is the best.

I have a 120KB/s(KiloBytes not bits

~ 1Mb/s ) internet connection. Since the download speed will be less I wont need speed > 1MB/s so I think USB 1.1 is enough.

The only thing remaining is this that I want to download more torrents concurrently.

What is the procedure you followed and how did you use Torrents can you elaborate it in a step by step process.

Thanks for your reply.

 

[bobbyprajan]

I have a 120KB/s(KiloBytes not bits

~ 1Mb/s ) internet connection. Since the download speed will be less I wont need speed > 1MB/s so I think USB 1.1 is enough.

The only thing remaining is this that I want to download more torrents concurrently.

What is the procedure you followed and how did you use Torrents can you elaborate it in a step by step process.

Thanks for your reply.

With the WL-520GU downloading more than 2 torrents will hog the router cpu.

After flashing the firmware mentioned in my previous post, I followed the instructions here adapting it wherever applicable.

 

[aman.pitbull]

With the WL-520GU downloading more than 2 torrents will hog the router cpu.

After flashing the firmware mentioned in my previous post, I followed the instructions here adapting it wherever applicable.

I did it a few days back, currently I'm using a Sandisk 8GB Cruzer partitioned as follows :

[font=Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif]Partition no: -- Type -- Size -- File System -- Label[/font]

[font=Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif]1 Primary -- 320MB -- EXT3 -- Optware[/font]

[font=Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif]2 Primary -- 256MB -- Swap -- Swapfile[/font]

[font=Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif]3 Primary -- 256MB -- EXT3 -- JFFS[/font]

[font=Arial,Tahoma,Helvetica,FreeSans,sans-serif]4 Primary -- (rest available space) -- EXT3 -- Data

I've turned off J2FS as it reduces speeds for a Flash Memory Based Device. The firmware I'm using is[/font]DD-WRT v24-sp2 (08/12/10) mini-usb-ftp(SVN revision 14929).

The problem with that firmware is that it only mounts ext3 partition but no ext2(recommended for a flash memory based device). So write speeds may suffer.

I'm using putty for interfacing with DD-WRT and WINSCP/FileZilla for ftp access. Both are working properly.

I'm getting really bad speeds, they average around 25-35KB/s(256 Kb/s) on my 125KB/s(1Mb/s) MTNL network.

Transmission Torrent speeds caps and settings are as follows :

Download speed = Unlimited

Upload Speed = 30KB/s

40 peers/ Torrent

100 Global Maximum Peers overall.

uTP set in config.json file but showing as unchecked in Web-GUI .

Port Forwarding Done on DD-WRT but Web-GUI is showing it as closed.

Maximum FTP copy-transfer speeds = 384 KB/s = 3Mb/s (if copying is done while transmission is ON, Transmission crashes and it's a lot of trouble to get it to start working again

).

I've a few questions :

Will using an external powered Hard Drive(3.5'') improve the download speeds ? I'll be trying the same in a few days.

Is there a newer better firmware supporting WL520GU that offers better speeds ?

My complete DDWRT Settings list and Transmission Running.

Along with Optware services, directory locations and settings.json file's configuration etc..

You can see the 240mhz broadcom processor is overloaded, load stays ~3.5 with transmission with 2 torrents(crash/reboot occurs if load goes over 7). I've attached a heat-sink on broadcom processor (w/ TX2 thermal paste) it stops it from overheating.

Cheers.

 

[aman.pitbull]

I'm getting a lot of problems in running transmission once the router is turned off and restarted or if the router reboots.

The Data partition on /mnt cannot be accessed in the ftp client. Help me out here guys.

But the following command gives the following result :

root@DD-WRT WL-520GU:~# dir /mnt

Torrent data lost+found

root@DD-WRT WL-520GU:~# mount

rootfs on / type rootfs (rw)

/dev/root on / type squashfs (ro)

none on /dev type devfs (rw)

proc on /proc type proc (rw)

ramfs on /tmp type ramfs (rw)

devpts on /proc/bus/usb type usbfs (rw)

/dev/discs/disc0/part1 on /opt type ext3 (rw,noatime)

/dev/mtdblock/4 on /jffs type jffs2 (rw)

/dev/scsi/host0/bus0/target0/lun0/part4 on /mnt type ext3 (rw,noatime)

/dev/scsi/host0/bus0/target0/lun0/part3 on /tmp/c type ext3 (rw,noatime)

 

[bobbyprajan]

I'm getting a lot of problems in running transmission once the router is turned off and restarted or if the router reboots.

The Data partition on /mnt cannot be accessed in the ftp client. Help me out here guys.

But the following command gives the following result :

Make sure you stop transmission before turning off the router. If you dont, it does an integrity check of all torrents which are not completed. This causes heavy load on the router.

The ftp server needs to be configured to make available "/mnt" to clients. The steps for the same differs between various ftp servers.

When running transmission do not run any other programs (samba, ftp etc) which accesses data from the USB drive, this will crash the router.

This router is quite a PITA for torrents. If you dont have the time and patience please upgrade to something like Asus N13U.